-=> Quoting Sandy Fitzgerald to Paul Edwards <=-

 SF> Can't say that I'm a great follower of Government owned businesses
 SF> particularly with the corruption and massive free handouts which
 SF> would never be given to private ent.

The truth of the matter is that no private enterprise would have really
been interested in the supplying such things as Telecommunications, Rail
Hospitals, Electricity, Sewerage and Water, etc, to a country as sparsely
populated as Australia was (and still is, ecological considerations aside).
These services have been always been privately run in the USA, where (I
think) entrepenours have always had a greater sense of national pride and
civic duty.

It would be naive to think that a group of people would just come in and say
we are going to supply **all** of Australia with Telecommunications, this
system will be state of the art and fairly competitive. Not without a lot of
help, concessions, subsidies, etc.

The truth of the matter is that public ownership has served Australia well
over the years. That is not to say that this is not in need of review for
some sectors. However, privatisation should not be carried out without proper
thought, on an ideological whim, or to pay for election promises made on
environmental issues.

 SF> .....govn run fleet of limousines charged out their hourly rate
 SF> at $80.00 per hour.  Considering they pay no sales tax on their
 SF> vechicles, their drivers are on saleries not the hourly rate and
 SF> their fuel and running cost would be almost half that of private
 SF> ent, yet the private ent charge out rate is $55.00 per hour.

TV is a bad teacher. In fact gov enterprise could always undercut priv ent
because of all of the things you already stated. The fleet of lemos would be
there for another (primary) function. The letting out is an additional extra.
However, **it is government policy** (the decision is made by politicians not
public servants) that gov ent should not compete with priv ent.

 PE> It's not Telecom's job to run a charity, it's the governments.

Your point is well made, but since Telecom owned by the government anyway,
does it really matter if Telecom does some charitable work?

The truth often lies neither in the black nor the white, but in the shades
of grey.

This is an interesting discussion...

Best regards



--- GEcho 1.12/beta+